Zoltán Fábri Collected Works II.

The second collection of the oeuvre series published for the 100th anniversary of his birth contains films primarily of the Modernist period made between 1959-1969, including 13 bonus features, contemporary as well as brand-new.

Movie DVD's:

1. The Brute (1960)2. Twenty Hours (1965)3. Late Season (1966)4. The Boys of Paul Street (1968)5. The Tot Family (1969)6. Bonus features

1. The Brute, black and white drama, Hungary – Zoltán Fábri, 1960

“Not a single Fábri film depicts erotic passion and the power of gender so disturbingly.” (Klára Barabás)

The temperamental farmer lusts after one of the beauties of the village, he quickly takes her and then discards her… Years later, when they meet again in the cooperative, the by-now married woman rejects his approach, but The Brute clashes evenwith the husband…

”Fábri hits new heights with Twenty Hours… the suffered-for, fought-for truth of the message, and the translucent purityof the complex-structured work fascinated all.” (László Nádasy)

The most successful of Fábri’s films was made on the basis of one of the most courageous and progressive novels of the 1960s. The 20-hour report evokes the 20 years of the history of a village as reflected in its memories. „The past that was suffered”serves the truth not only of Chairman Jóska but of Anti Balogh who shoots at him, and even of the young affluent peasant (kulák).

”Late Season is a film of fear, in black and white, which is about all conscience, like a hallucination… Zoltán Fábri receivedthe grand prix of the City of Venice. Late Season won the Cineforum 1967 prize for its humanity, its rhythmically pacedand highly imaginative language, and its fine confession of individual responsibility. Antal Páger received the CinemaNuovó prize. Other laureates of the prize include Visconti, Bardem, Ingmar Bergman and Antonioni…” (László Zay, 1967)

Fábri’s own favourite and most exciting film is a grotesque vision of a drugstore assistant who, upon hearing the wrong wordat the wrong time, sends his boss to a death camp. The trial he summons, where his friends are the prosecutors, and the eventsthat take place on several time levels, make for accumulated and enormous tension.

„The finest thing that Fábri could do was remain true to Molnár! To film the sort of The Boys of Paul Street that he wouldhave dreamed of… The first Hungarian feature film to be nominated for the traditional Academy Awards.The Hungarian film was up against the Soviet War and Peace and The Fireman’s Ball of Czechoslovakia, Stolen Kisses fromFrance and The Girl with a Pistol from Italy”. (Tükör)

Despite the superiority of the red shirts, general Boka and his little troop are cleverly defending the ‘sweet lot’. They would nothave been able to win unless little Private Nemecsek, branded a traitor, had not revealed the treason of rich Geréb, who in turnmust undergo the humiliation of cold baths.

"The Major of Örkény, of Fábri and Latinovits exposes and makes the viewer hate the thinking responsible for the devastationof World War II drunk on nationalist slogans and thumbing its nose at morals and truths, just as all types of tyrannyagainst the people in history.” (László Zay)

Set in World War II in a small village deep in the countryside, a major suffering a nervous breakdown spends his leave with theparents of his favourite lieutenant. Willing to make sacrifices in the interest of the son/brother, mother and daughter fulfil histyrannical demands. Only the highly-respected fire chief defies – in the name of human self-esteem – the order to constructboxes until dawn...

Screen Tests for The Brute (1959)The Success of Twenty Hours in Moscow – Hungarian Newsreel 30/1965Hungarian Filmcritics’ Award – Hungarian Newsreel 5/1966HungarianFilm Week ’67 – Late Season – Hungarian Newsreel 42/1967Irregular stories. Zoltán Fábri on Late Season (1994)On the Set of The Boys of Paul Street –Hungarian Newsreel 20/1968How is Colour Film Made – The Boys of Paul Street – Hungarian Newsreel 7/1969The carrier of The Boys of Paul Street (2012)They were Heroes– Director Ferenc Török on The Boys of Paul Street (2017)Nyika Jancsó on shooting and restoring The Boys of PaulStreet (2017)Writer István Örkény on The Tot Family (1969)Portrait Zoltán Fábri – The making of The Tot Family (1969)Filmhistorian Gábor Gelencsér on the world of Zoltán Fábri (2018)

Published and distributed by Hungarian National Film Fund – Film Archive, 2018

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